Fighting Time
by Cowvalier
Summary: A series of character explorations and drabbles about various elements and themes about Link in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask universes in a condensed and prose approach.
1. Chapter 1: Children

The Bombers: A secret society of Justice helping people out 24 hours a day.

If you were to ask their leader, he would boast that they "have contacts all over clock town, access to the only (now redundant) astral observatory in Termina, a secret hideout with enough real estate to house all of Clock Town and some of the most dedicated membership and network of allies in any fraternity that has ever existed. We're dedicated to helping out with everyone's problems in clock town and we're the only ones who can!"

If you were to ask everyone else, they would say "They're just children."

But children aren't meant to be looking out for everyone else's problems.

Children aren't meant to be the ones out in the field earning a living.

Children aren't meant to be desperately holding back tears of frustration at the impossible difficulty of their lot in life.

Children aren't meant to be stuck in a cycle of work, rest and more work – each day should be a new experience, a new adventure and a new piece of information to tuck away in their rapidly growing minds and bodies.

Children shouldn't be the ones looking out for the adults – Children are meant to be selfish and motivated by nothing and pleasantly astounded by everything and to dream of tomorrow when they will finally be an adult.


	2. Chapter 2: Kokiri

Link was always interested in exploring.

Home was always the last place he wanted to be.

Home meant nature and providence – luscious and just-ripe fruit and vegetables given to him daily by the benevolent trees around him, the purest water he has ever tasted in his life lazily trickled to him by the natural incline of the Forest's stream and the most cheerful and unflappable group of Children he had ever encountered always greeting him with a cheerful "Hello!" in chorus with their ever present fairy partner – sedate, repetitive and unstimulating torture.

Worst of all, home meant a forest that had all its exits and interesting nooks and crannies blocked at every turn by Mido, the self-appointed village leader and head of security.

Every time he asked to be let out, it was the same conversation with Mido:

"You know that when all Kokiri leave the forest, they die!"

"I'm just heading out to the lost woods. I won't die there."

"No! I refuse, I, the great Mido, cannot let you risk letting some wolfos or stalfos into the Forest that I worked so hard to cleanse!"

"…"

"If you keep trying to leave, no fairy is ever going to become your partner!"

And so the story went in Kokiri forest – never were the children there concerned about why Link wanted to see the outside world so badly – only that he did, and it was enough to make them think of him in much the same vein as they feared anything from the outside world – radical, dangerous, _new_.

Link, from that day forward, was no longer a Kokiri.

And that was that, no questions asked or facts investigated or points of view considered – the simple and brutal honesty of children.

Link has since gone on to explore the rest of the unblinking, ever-waking world without worry for constraints or self-appointed guardians – except for the few times when he is reminded of how young he is by those guards in Clock Town that refused to let him out until they saw his sword, just like Mido.

Or when he entered the deku scrub royal palace and met the overbearing, overprotective king.

Or that thrice blasted enormous owl that refuses to let him go his own way (he can't help but remember that particular brand of bastard every time he uses an owl warp statue in Termina – the irony of the freedom granted by the statue being tainted by the memory of that oppressive owl not being lost on him.)

These people stick out in his memory most of all because they are constant reminders that he is, in the worlds' eye, a child. Just a child, they think, a desperate, scrawny child wielding a sword and shield and a heroic chip on his shoulder who is very clearly in need of guidance (and better fashion sense and a 'bellyful of food he's far too short for his age').

But he isn't just a child – he is a representative with the backing of the Great Deku Tree – the spiritual guardian of Farore's natural domain, the Kokiri Forest, since time immemorial. He is an agent acting under the personal behest of her Royal Highness Princess Zelda to stop a cataclysmic evil. He is a liaison between Hylian, Goron and Zoran alike – accepting trivial errands, monstrous bear hugs and momentous marital engagements alike.

He is someone who can't leave well enough alone – it must be better than well enough.

He is someone who must have perfection and sublime happiness from everyone he meets but not sublime happiness granted through the works of others, as in the Kokiri Forest.

No, Link wants to, has to, _craves_ making other people happy and satisfied and content.

If he sees a person, he doesn't see just a person he sees a story with a past, a present and an unwritten future that is all defined by sadness and want and sorrow that he _must_ rectify – no matter the cost.

He wants to be the giver of all because his own givers have died in his stead.

His unseen father, dead fighting off the stalfos and bandits that stalked through the Lost Woods after he and his wife had fled and his unnamed mother, dead from a shockingly large loss of blood.

Link can't help but blame himself and wonder why and ask the goddesses why they had to die – and every story he concocts to come to terms with it features himself as the major character, the key protagonist that somehow causes everyone else to die.

Especially his surrogate patron – the Great Deku Tree.

The Great Deku Tree – wise, benign, kind. The bringer and provider and maintainer of paradise in Hyrule, the Kokiri Forest. He was Link's idol – an unflappable and ancient and wise and courageous giver of all that ensured safety and sublime satisfaction that didn't feel fear or have nightmares every night.

Most of all he was a sign of, in Link's mind, his own failure – his failure to control his dream.

When Link thinks of the Deku Tree, he sees the King of Thieves marching out of Link's daily nightmare. He sees Ganondorf scare the boy into submission and escape the shackles of the dreamworld and coalesce into the real one and ride swiftly and furiously into the deku tree and plant a great poison within him – the Gohma.

Link sees his culpability and his own weaknesses at every stumble and every delay and every mishap he made inside the tree as he tried to hunt down the Gohma and kill it – and he sees, most of all, an hourglass with constantly pouring sand and a the Deku Tree withering and dying and drying up ever so unbearably slowly.

He sees his failure and he sees his dreams coming to destroy all that he holds dear – and somehow it is his fault and therefore it is his duty to stop it all.


	3. Chapter 3: Navi

Navi understood this.

She was the watcher of the watchman - giving him sound advice preceded by her characteristic "Hey! Look! Listen! Watch out!" – her sharp, piercing voice breaking through Link's stupor and getting him off his obsessive compulsive, one track mind. She would help him and be there for him and tell him what he needed to do and, most importantly, when he needed to _stop_.

She would hold him and his indomitable will to explore and to help and to do things in check – his balance, his guide, his moral compass.

Like when he would hang around Lon Lon Ranch for days at a time, pacing to and fro between the rough dirt track and the cobblestone wall from sunup to sundown – at which point he would quickly retreat to Kakariko village. He would be muttering under his breath, closing his eyes and trying a variety of poses and mannerisms of speech -trying to pluck up the courage to go in and say hi to that redheaded girl again – Navi would tell him that Zelda needed him to do something or that he hadn't talked to Saria in a while and off he would go to more important and less stressful things.

Like when he hung around the Kakariko Village graveyard – patrolling the headstones – lightly brushing off moss and mould where he could and rearranging and bringing fresh flowers where he couldn't – Navi would comment that Dampe, the cheerful gravekeeper, already had that job and that Link needed to go and help Anju with the cuccoos again.

Like when he wouldn't – couldn't – abandon the corpse of the soldier who had valiantly given his life to protect Princess Zelda from the clutches of the King of Thieves, Ganondorf – Navi would gently tug on his green cap as he tried feeding the dead man Lon-Lon milk, giving him the Ocarina of Time or the three sacred gemstones and doing anything, everything, he could that was medically, humanly and spiritually possible to save him.


End file.
